Chris Webber CAN'T STAND the Flopping In Today's NBA

Chris Webber's standard for whether a basketball player should fall down comes from his father's living room.

"If my dad was in the room, I wouldn't let a guy weigh 100 pounds more push me and fall on the floor and flop," Webber told Rich. "I'd be embarrassed in front of my pops."

That was his answer to the question every NBA fan has spent the playoffs asking. Where does the flopping fault really lie?

Webber was direct. He hates the move. He has hated it since it first arrived in the NBA from European soccer. He played with teammates who did it. He said the referees of his era refused to take it seriously, which kept it contained.

"I hate flopping," Webber said. "And I played with players that flop."

His structural answer put more of the burden on officials than on the players.

"I put it on the officials to officiate the game," Webber said.

He used Shaquille O'Neal as the counterpoint. Shaq could not flop. His size made the move physically impossible. He paid for that, because opponents could hit him harder and try to tear him down, knowing he had no theatrical recourse.

Players keep doing it because the league rewards it. Webber's case for why it should stop is aesthetic as much as competitive.

"It looks like WWF," he said. "We're just too good for it. Players are just too good for it."

Rich raised the SGA case. After Oklahoma City's Game 1 win, Rich's social media timeline was a montage of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hitting the floor untouched, not a montage of him making shots. Rich asked whether the league should start handing out technicals for flopping on offense the way it does on defense.

Webber liked the idea, then drew a line. Embellishment is fine. Flopping is not. The two are not the same thing.

"Most refs are trying to do their best in the game," Webber said. He thinks the players also have to take accountability. He wants referees to let a few more plays breathe, to let the wrong calls embarrass the wrong people.

"Get back up," is how he framed it.